Mary started doing 12-hour shifts aged just 15 in 1940 and remained there until the end of the Second World War in 1945.

She bore witness to the sheer destruction caused by the Blitz of Sheffield in December 1940 which left more than 660 people dead.

However, such was the wartime spirit at the time she refused to let this stop her from going to work to help with the war effort.

Women Of Steel at work in the munitions factory - helping to win the fight for freedom.

Her son Anthony, aged 68, of Richmond, said: "She walked to work from her home in Nodder Road, Woodthorpe, and witnessed the devastation of the raid, scrambling over rubble in Fitzalan Square, as bodies were being recovered from the Marples Hotel, which took a direct hit."

Indeed the Coward family as a whole played a vital part in the war effort.